The principal dancer with the National Ballet of Canada first played the role of Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake at the age of 19 and has dined out on it ever since, performing the role in numerous theatres around the world.

“I play princely roles,” explains Côté during rehearsals for Swan Lake, which opens Saturday, March 8 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. “Swan Lake means a lot to me, it is a blockbuster.”

Tchaikovsky’s iconic music is as important to the dance as Shakespeare’s words are to actors, he says.

Côté loves the music so much that, in spite of playing the role dozens of times and hearing the score throughout a National Ballet career that began at age 9, he still puts the CD on at home for pleasure.

“It’s beautiful,” says Côté, who will dance opposite Greta Hodgkinson but is married to fellow principal dancer Heather Ogden. “She’s my swan,” says the gallant Côté, who weathered a Swan Lake photo shoot in High Park’s Grenadier Pond with Ogden that had them both getting soaked.

“It was mucky, muddy, I kept sinking,” says Côté, who was in full ballet gear including shoes and tights. And appropriately for a ballet about feathered creatures, the water was covered in “duck poo.”

David Briskin, music director and principal conductor for the company, says that the first production of Swan Lake in 1877 in Moscow drew ridicule, but it has lasted because of the profound unity of music and dance.

The recurring themes in the music are both pastoral and menacing, and characters are illuminated by their own music “indicating fragility and strength,” he says.

“There is a certain aggressiveness” about the entrance of the flock of swans, he says, “They are beautiful and elegant, but the swans can be nasty.”

And the oboe is used to herald the presence of a single swan (what other instrument could do that, he wonders).

The orchestra must collaborate with dancers — not just play the music straight off the sheets — as the conductor keeps an eye on the performers.

Côté, for example, does long extended finishes, so Briskin says the music must stay longer with the dancer.

As there are four prince/swan combinations, the orchestra plays differently for each team, creating significantly different productions.

Some dancers are “quicksilver” and the music can dash along too, Briskin says.

Famed choreographer George Balanchine once said, “Dancing is music made visible,” adds Briskin, so the two art forms are wedded together in any ballet production.

From the very first days when Celia Franca formed the company in 1951, there has been a National Ballet Orchestra — a decision, Briskin says, that put music smack dab in the middle of the ballet’s success.

The most important thing to remember about the music is “We tell the story,” says Briskin.

Just listening to the score for Swan Lake evokes visions of birds, water and menace, he says.

He calls Swan Lake, “one of the greatest ballet scores of all time.”

The National Ballet of Canada’s Swan Lake is at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. W., March 8 to 16. Tickets, national.ballet.ca or 416-345-9595.

New CEO keen on ‘vibrant’ Toronto

Barry Hughson, the new CEO of the National Ballet of Canada, is getting to know the city.

He arrived with his actress wife and two children in January and each weekend the family ventures from their rented home near High Park to discover the neighbourhoods of Toronto.

In many ways, Toronto is a lot like the city he just left after serving five years as the executive director of the Boston Ballet. The companies are similar in size, the climate is much the same (only Toronto is colder), but the biggest difference Hughson has noted is the “vibrant” culture.

“It is tremendously diverse,” says Hughson, adding that it’s fantastic that governments support the arts in this city.

Hughson, a former ballet dancer who was a member of the Washington Ballet, has spent most of his career in management and was in Atlanta before Boston.

What drew the American to Toronto was artistic director Karen Kain’s vision of a national company with high-level artistic aspirations.

“You have to lead with a kindred spirit,” says Hughson.

The National Ballet of Canada is a well respected institution on the world stage, says Hughson, adding, “Ballet is a global art form and we live in a global society.”

His strengths are fundraising and building relationships with those who support the arts, he says. He is particularly interested in recruiting former dancers, many of whom go on to teaching or choreography.

“Few find their way into the business side of art. But they are the best marketers and leaders.”

Trish Crawford

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